Stay at DePaul as #1 in class or move to Northwestern?

cooleylawstudent

The hilarity of it is that a lot of the same people that would follow USNEWS&world report ranking off a cliff, would never read and appreciate their republican based articles. A lot of them are more democrat and time magazine oriented. It'd be like someone being a Vegan and yet only eating at restartants recommend by "Carnavore weekly".

I honestly I think if you graduated #1 from any ABA school that would be more impressive than middle of the pack at an Ivy League school. If you are doing that well somewhere and like everything about the school I think it would be stupid to leave, but that is just my opinion. I doubt anyone ranked #1 at any ABA school ever had a hard time finding a job. #1 is pretty damn good and it is actually earned on merit not some subjective B.S. U.S. News Ranking of a school.

I did have a quick question though. I also had a professor let admissions know he was interested in my file. How much do you think that makes a difference? Does it make you a sure thing assuming you can reasonably be seen as getting in? DO you think it overcomes many obstacles that may otherwise prevent you from getting in?

According to the recommender, it should definitely help, but he's not sure now much. We all know how much of a crap-chute admissions can be, so his feeling is anything to separate you from the rest of the candidates will be a nice added bonus. But as for a "sure thing," I certainly can't imagine it would be.

I should have added this to my previous post: You need to also decide whether you would be happy staying at DePaul if you graduate at #3,5,10,15 (I don't know how many students are in your class), basically top 10% good, but not #1. It's very likely that you won't be #1 when you graduate. You may have a bad headache on a test day and get a B+. Who knows, there are so many things that could happen during your exams, and remember you have 20 more to take.

Certainly something to keep in mind and I'm aware that this is a highly probably scenario, but seeing as OCI is this fall (before any more grades come out), I just assumed it won't be a huge catastrophe if I slip a few spots.

Anyone ever hear of a school increasing a student's scholarship after his or her first year? My dad seems to think I could use the 4.0 and potential transfer as a bargaining chip for more money. Any thoughts?

If you have been accepted to Northwestern I think you could just let Depaul know about it and that you are considering transferring. Maybe you won't get anything, but maybe they will come back with an offer it never hurts to ask.

I'm not sure how it works at other schools. My school that I attended for 1L had scholarship increases after the first year based on rank. Unfortunately, there was no rank that could get a full ride. It was a new scholarship program that they started this past year, and I think before they started it students basically had to go meet with the Dean and threaten to transfer in order to get more money.